American Dream is an expression often used to describe the vital ideals of the US population in both the material and spiritual senses.
The American dream is the ideal of freedom and opportunity, the spiritual power of the nation. If the American system is a skeleton of US policy, the American dream is its soul.
The source of the phrase American Dream is considered to be The Epic of America (1931), historical treatise by James Adams written during the Great Depression. James Adams encouraged his compatriots and reminded them of the purpose of America and its achievements. He states: “The American Dream is “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous5 circumstances of birth or position.” (p.214-215)More »

Alabama
Unforgettable
Capital City: Montgomery
Known as the Heart of Dixie, Alabama became the 22nd state in 1819. The name Alabama is derived from an Indian word meaning “thicket clearers.” Alabama has been at the center of many American battles-between white settlers and Native Americans, and between the North and South in the Civil War. The state also is home to the first of three Space Camps in the United States. These camps let kids experience what it would be like to be in outer space. The capital is Montgomery, and state flower is the camellia.
Origin of state’s name: Means “tribal town” in the Creek Indian language.More »

The name of America’s greatest river, the Mississippi, is made from two American Indian words: misi (great) and sipi (water). It is 3,778 km long and flows from the US state of Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. Its tributary, the Missouri River, is 3,767 km, and together they form the largest river system in the world.
Hundreds of years ago, Native Americans lived along the ‘Father of the Waters’ and used the river for trade and travel.
The first Europeans to reach the river were Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto and his party in 1541.
Until 1803 the Mississippi River was the western boundary of the United States; the land beyond belonged to France and Spain. The French controlled a large territory known as Louisiana (after King Louis XIV of France). The ruler of France at this time was Napoleon, and Americans were afraid that he might send French soldiers and settlers to Louisiana. President Thomas Jefferson decided to buy the land. Luckily, Napoleon was about to go to war with Britain and needed money. For fifteen million dollars he sold Louisiana to the United States!
The Mississippi River starts at Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota. It is a pristine, sparkling place, and the waters from which it comes are very clear and cold. The river is so narrow here that you can walk across it in 15 steps.More »

Eton College is one of the most famous schools in the world. It is a school for boys only. It’s located in the small town of Eton, next to Windsor which is famous for Windsor Castle. Prince William and Prince Harry studied in Eton College.
Eton was founded by King Henry VI in 1440. The king was only 18 at that time. His aim was to give education to poor boys so that they could then go to Cambridge University. The chosen boys should “have a good character, be good at reading, Latin grammar and singing”. If they “behaved badly, married, or became monks”, they had to leave.
The life in Eton was hard. Rats ran free about the college, boys had to get up at 5 o’clock in the morning and all lessons were in Latin.
Today, Eton is the largest, most prestigious and very expensive public school in Britain. To get into the college you have to pass entrance exams first.More »

A long time ago there lived a Cherokee boy named Sequoyah. He was not as tall as his friends, and he was lame. Yet this small boy grew up to be the greatest Cherokee of them all. For it was Sequoyah who solved the mystery of the talking leaves.
Sequoyah was born about 1773. No one knows for sure just which year it was. In those days the Indians did not have a written language. Sequoyah’s mother was the daughter of a great Cherokee chief. His father was a white man named Nathaniel Gist. Nathaniel left the Cherokees soon after Sequoyah was born. He had to go back to his own people. But Sequoyah and his mother stayed with the tribe. That was the custom.
When Sequoyah grew up, he got interested in the white people’s language. The white people used paper for writing. Sequoyah thought that paper looked like large white leaves. The “leaves”: were covered with many black marks. Sequoyah watched the people as they looked at their “leaves”. To Sequoyah it seemed as though the little marks written on the paper were talking to people.More »

Britain has always had kings or queens for more than a thousand years. Kings had great power and they really made history. They started wars, made laws, and did things in their own way. But more and more power went to Parliament.

A job for life
Elizabeth II calls the Windsor family a “Firm”. She thinks of it as a business rather than a family. And the main business of the royal family is… well, probably being royal. And they are paid for it. The Queen is one of the richest women in the world. There are hundreds of traditional ceremonies which the Queen has to keep. Each year, in September or October, there is the State Opening of Parliament. The Queen, wearing her crown, arrives at the Houses of Parliament by carriage. There she reads the Queen’s Speech, which discusses the government’s work for the next year.More »

This photograph, taken by Dorothea Lange, was widely published and symbolized the Great Depression.

One Thursday afternoon in October 1929, a workman outside an upper floor window of a Wall Street office found himself staring into the eyes of four policemen. They reached out to catch hold of him. “Don’t jump!” shouted one of the policemen. “It’s not that bad.” “Who’s going to jump?” asked the surprised worker. “I’m just washing windows!”
To understand this incident we need to look at what had been happening in Wall Street in the months and years before that October afternoon in 1929.
Wall Street is the home of the New York Stock Exchange. Here dealers called stockbrokers buy and sell shares.
Owning shares in a business gives you the right to a share of its profits. But you can make money from shares in another way. You can buy them at one price and then, if the company does well, sell them later at a higher one.
More and more people were eager to get some of this easy money. By 1929, buying and selling shares had become almost a national hobby.More »

The Tower of London was started in 1066 by William the Conqueror. He built his fortress beside the River Thames to protect London from enemies. The Tower has been many things throughout its 900-year history: a palace, a fortress, a prison, a place of execution, and even a zoo. Today, the Tower is a historical museum. There are about 150 people and eight ravens live in the Tower. Some people think there are also ghosts there.
The White Tower is the oldest building on the territory. English kings ate, slept and ran the country there. But the first person to live in the White Tower in 1100 was a prisoner named Ranulf Flambard, who escaped down a rope from an upper window. Later the Tower was made larger and stronger. The Queen’s House built for Queen Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII was the last palace built in the Tower. But she lived there only as a prisoner for 18 days awaiting her execution. She was beheaded not far from the palace — on Tower Green.More »